Seeing the Whole System: Why Fall Reporting in Nursing Homes Requires a Systems Thinking Approach

Underreporting falls in nursing homes skews safety data, misleads families, and endangers residents. Learn how applying a systems thinking approach can rebuild trust and improve resident safety.

Practical Applications for Enhancing Hygiene in Long-Term Care: A Multidepartmental Approach to Infection Prevention

During the COVID-19 pandemic, long-term care facilities (LTCFs) showed a concerning increase in healthcare associated infections (HAIs). The unique needs of residents in LTCFs make them highly vuln...

Start Talking to Patients about Advance Care Planning Today!

Advance care planning (ACP) is not only for older adults or terminally ill patients; all patients benefit from these discussions with their doctor to avoid making important decisions in the middle ...

Ensuring Safety in Senior Care: Why PSOs Matter

Protecting the safety of the senior population is crucial, as people tend to be more susceptible to health complications, injuries, and emotional challenges as they age. Long-term care providers ...

The Vital Role of Patient Safety Organizations in Senior Care

As our population ages, ensuring safe, high-quality healthcare for seniors has never been more crucial. The older adult population often experiences higher levels of medical complexity, which can i...

Navigating the Complexities of Dementia Diagnosis: The Path to Diagnostic Excellence

Understanding the diagnosis of dementia is essential for medical professionals, patients, and caregivers. Unlike many medical conditions that are diagnosed through straightforward testing, diagnosi...

How American Emergency Departments Are Missing Older Adult Abuse

A recent report in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society (JAGS) suggests that emergency departments (EDs) have opportunities to improve how they identify cases of older adult abuse and how ...

Building Effective Policies for Comorbidity Management

​​​​Policies for managing comorbidities, as well as multimorbidity and multiple chronic conditions, vary based on the medical conditions involved; therefore, developing a uniform policy is not nece...

10 Ways to Prevent Falls in Assisted Living Facilities

September 18 -22, 2023, marks Falls Prevention Awareness Week in the United States. Despite widespread fall prevention programs, fall incidence rates are on the rise in the United States, with an a...

Preventing Short-Stay Readmissions

​Every care transition carries increased risk of adverse events, poor health outcomes, emotional instability, and high healthcare costs—and the risks are even more elevated for older adults, especi...

Managing Falls in Senior Care and Reducing Risk of Claims

Older adults who reside in senior living and skilled nursing communities fall more often than community-dwelling older adults; about half of all residents fall each year, and 10–25% of those falls ...

Three Evidence-based Strategies for Preventing Pressure Injuries in Older Patients

Pressure injuries (PIs) can be a common health concern, especially for populations like older adults, where typical changes that accompany the aging process can already increase risks for these typ...

Preventing Harm in Senior Care: Emerging Technologies to Mitigate Hazardous Wandering and Elopement

Caring for persons with dementia requires provider organizations to create tailored care delivery environments that enhance a person’s remaining capabilities while also supporting the special needs...

Incident Management Systems Are Essential For Any Healthcare Facility

Regardless of the type of healthcare facility you manage—a hospital, an assisted living center, or an ambulatory care establishment—incident management for patient safety should be a primary focus ...

How to Improve Your Organization's Approach to Healthcare Incident Management

Accidents, outbreaks, and other incidents regularly occur in healthcare settings. This is not surprising to most healthcare providers, including those working in aging services and ambulatory care ...

To Reduce Malpractice Claims Improve Communication

"Communication failures cost 1.5 times as much as claims without communication failures, and were more than twice as likely to result in a payout of more than $1 million," the Journal of Patient Sa...

Vaccination: For Your Residents, Your Family, Your Friends, and Yourself

All who have cared for our nation’s older adults through the COVID-19 pandemic have given so much; the toll in lives lost, illness, and financial and economic impacts have been great for those we s...

Mandatory Staff Vaccinations: Short-Term Benefits vs. Potential Unintended Consequences

With several vaccines against COVID-19 already available through emergency use authorization (EUA), others potentially on the way, and a nationwide vaccination campaign to administer the vaccine to...

Keep Healthcare Workers Safe to Improve Patient Safety

Healthcare workers face work-related risks, illnesses, and injuries, and patient safety is directly tied to worker safety. Creating a culture of safety is crucial. ECRI, and its affiliate, the Inst...

ECRI Stands for Senior Care

The stakes are high in medicine and healthcare – they pertain to life and death, as the current pandemic has reminded us on an hourly basis. This is especially true when it comes to those who care ...

Rethinking Incident Investigations in Senior Care

Decisions made and actions taken in the first minutes and hours after an incident occurs in an aging services organization set the stage for everything else that follows. For instance, consider thi...